Bébé

“ O most holy Infant! grant me continually to hold fast Your blessed hands, that I may securely walk through the slippery paths of this life, always moving according to Your holy will, and with submission to my spiritual guides. Amen.
(Prayer as first day, to Mary and Joseph.)
Fifth Day.
To the pure and benign eyes of the Infant Jesus.
THIS day adore and love the pure and benignant eyes of your Infant Saviour, those eyes which beam purity, love, and sweetness; those eyes which have wrought such wonders in souls; those eyes, in fine, which have shed over our miseries abundant tears. ”

“ When they lay their darling down to rest,
’Neath the willows bending low.
“Only a baby!” how cold it seemed
To speak of the angel near,—
My heart went after the snowy form.
For its parents I breathed a prayer:
“Only a baby!” ah, the weary day
And the sleepless night,
The feverish longing—the aching heart—
For the baby gone from sight!
“Only a baby!” the heart sobs out,
What hopes lie shatter’d here,
The broken bud—the tiny frame,
An angel hovering near.
“Only a baby!”—the years creep by—
’Twill ever be, tho’ locks be gray;
Growing no older—only their babe ”

“ I stepped up to a lady to ask the age of a baby which she had in her maternal arms, when I found myself instantly a centre of baby attraction—babies seemed to pitch into me from all directions—a baby poked its fingers into my eye, a baby put sugar on my ruffled shirt, a baby daubed gruel on my white vest, a baby filled my kid glove with milk, a baby dropped something done up in a rag down my neck, and a baby of huge dimensions and unredeemed ugliness amused itself by filling my hat full of playthings which it appropriated from the weaker babies on either side. ”

“ Meanwhile, nature has provided an educational appliance almost ideally adapted to the child’s sense condition, in the mother’s face, hovering close above him, smiling, laughing, nodding, with all manner of delightful changes in the high lights; in the thousand little meaningless caressing sounds, the singing, talking, calling, that proceed from it; the patting, cuddling, lifting, and all the ministrations that the baby feels while gazing at it, and associates with it, till finally they group together and round out into the idea of his mother as a whole. ”

“ You'd think, to see us carrying on about that little tad,
That, like as not, that baby was the first we'd ever had;
But, sakes alive! he isn't, yet we people make a fuss
As if the only baby in the world had come to us! ”

“ Baby, hear the bells!
—Baby's head
Bows, as ripe for bed,
Now the flowers curl round and close their cells.
Baby, flower of light,
Sleep, and see
Brighter dreams than we,
Till good day shall smile away good night. ”

“ When a fresh infant was published in a house, the critics would call in a body to pass their judgment upon it, and the young mother would bring it down for them to sample.
"Did you ever see a child anything like that in this world before?" she would say, holding it out to them. "Isn't it a wonderful baby? You never saw a child with legs like that, I know. Nurse says he's the most extraordinary baby she ever attended. ”

“ The usual establishment for an eldest landed baby is, two wet nurses, two ditto dry, two aunts, two physicians, two apothecaries; three female friends of the family, unmarried, advanced in life; and often in the nursery, one clergyman, six flatterers, and a grandpapa! ”

“ An infant born in the smallest town of the most despised nation of the earth—an infant whose mother had not what the poorest and most wretched female in any one of our cities has, a room for birth—an infant born in a stable and laid in a manger!... ”

“ Every mother and real nurse knows that when the baby begins to be uneasy and gives a cry of dissatisfaction,—to come near with a smile, to make one's presence felt by a caressing tone, or to take the infant in their arms, will comfort it, bringing back the joyful sense of life—a word which signifies active relation;—and, in its highest sense, spiritual relation. ”

“ What will the baby be, Mamma,
(With a kick and a crow, and a hushaby-low) .
What will the baby be, Mamma,
When he grows up into a man?
Will he always kick, and always crow,
And flourish his arms and his legs about so,
And make up such horrible faces, you know,
As ugly as ever he can?
The baby he may be a soldier, my dear,
With a fife and a drum, and a rum-tiddy-tum!
The baby he may be a soldier, my dear,
When he grows up into a man. ”

“ Toddle, toddle, waddle, waddle,
On her little pinky toes.
Stumble, stumble, pitch and tumble,
That's the way the baby goes.
Prattle, prattle, rattle, rattle,
Little shouts and little shrieks,
Tears, with laughter coming after,
That's the way the baby speaks.
Playing, toying, still enjoying
Every sweet that Nature gives.
Smiling, weeping, waking, sleeping,
That's the way the baby lives. ”

“ My dear little woman, the child is not going to die every time it sneezes, the house is not bound to get burned down and the nurse run away with a soldier every time you go outside the front door; nor the cat sure to come and sit on the precious child’s chest the moment you leave the bedside. You worry yourself a good deal too much about that solitary chick, and you worry everybody else too. Try and think of your other duties, and your pretty face will not be always puckered into wrinkles, and there will be cheerfulness in the parlor as well as in the nursery. Think of your big baby a little. ”

“ If waiting for play till baby has had its meal, how it stands at its mother's knee, making folds in her gown,—see-sawing its body perhaps, and fetching deep sighs, to throw off its impatience, but speaking no word—making no complaint till baby has had its dues. And when its turn is come, baby being laid down, what a spring into the lap, what a clasp of the neck is there! ”

“ The infant has its paradise in the arms of its mother, its providence; here the infant, the grub, is the providence of the mother. With its patient tooth, which neither the perils of the outside world nor the difficult task of boring through hard wood are able to deter, it clears a way for her to the supreme delights of the sun. ”

“ Baby, baby, ope your eye,
For the sun is in the sky,
And he’s peeping once again
Through the clear, bright window-pane;
Little baby, do not keep
Any longer fast asleep,
Through your cradle curtains peep. THE BABY-JUMPER
Now, little Georgie, jump up high ”

“ A proud young mother was dandling her infant at a shop door, as if desirous that the whole street should be aware of the important fact of her maternity—to be sure, there never was such a beautiful baby before! ”

“ Baby Souls, Kings of the Future, bearers of the Earth's great secrets—wainting to cross the Threshold of Life.
Babies are a lot like flowers. Some are born into the world nourished and cared for amid beautiful surroundings. ”

“ For when the infant first wakes to consciousness, and commences its converse with the world, the first ray of knowledge, and the earliest of its discriminations, beam from a mother’s eye; and the emotions of its little heart receive their modulation from the melody of a mother’s voice. ”

“ The bell is rung and somebody sent to tell nurse to bring baby down. This is the signal for all the females present to commence talking “baby,” during which time you are left to your own sad thoughts and the speculations upon the practicability of suddenly recollecting an important engagement, and the likelihood of your being believed if you do. Just when you have concocted an absurdly implausible tale about a man outside, the door opens, and a tall, severe-looking woman enters, carrying what at first sight appears to be a particularly skinny bolster, with the feathers all at one end. ”

“ To those who know not the sacredness of such tender connexions, or who feel not the delightful endearingness of children, the birth of an infant seems an event of little interest; but O! who that loves to contemplate the purest innocence under the purest and loveliest form, the unconscious trust and dependance of infancy, the charm of its smiles, its caresses and its slumbers, who that loves or pos{236}sesses a child can deem the mother’s and the father’s joy a trifling emotion? ”

“ The infant is carried by the mother almost continuously during the waking hours of its first year of life; it is generally suspended in a sling made of wood or of basket-work, resembling in shape the baby's swing familiar in our nurseries ”

“ Can we help suspecting a period, somewhere in the remote ages, when the baby’s ancestry dwelt amid the treetops, and learned to stand by balancing on one branch while they held by a higher one? when they edged along the branch, holding on above, but dropped to all-fours and crept when they came to the ground now and then to get from tree to tree? The whole history of the baby’s movements points to this: the strong arms and clinging hands, from birth; the intense impulse to pull up, even from the beginning of sitting; the way in which standing always begins, by laying hold above and pulling up ”

“ You will explain that the baby comes in just the same way so far as its infant body is concerned, growing like the kitten from a tiny cell—borne by the mother till all the organs are formed which it needs for its earthly life, when it also is born and laid in its mother's arms, to be nourished and cared for by the love of both father and mother, not for a few weeks, as with animals, but through long years of helplessness. ”

“ The nursery radiator has begun. I must go and get baby.
Mr. E. Let baby alone. If the youngster will sleep, for heaven’s sake let him. The steam-pipes make noise enough for this time of night, one would think, without your taking the trouble to wake baby. ”

“ If the mother would have this child love and not hate the baby, if she would have peace and not tempest reign in the little heart, she will be very watchful. She will have her eye on the little creature, and call it to help her to take care of the baby. She will keep it at her knee, and show it, with many a tender kiss between, how to make baby smile, how to warm baby's feet; will let it taste whether baby's food be nice, and then peep into the cradle, to see whether baby be asleep. ”

“ These people “believe that an infant is the child, not of its parents, but of the spirits, and in this belief they go through the following formalities. As soon as an infant is born it is bathed and dressed, laid upon a rice-sieve, and placed—by the grandmother if present, if not, by the next near female relative—at the head of the stairs or of the ladder leading to the house. ”

“ We shall consider, for a moment, the more important details of the routine care that you should give yourself, for the baby’s sake, and then we shall be ready for the pleasantest task of all—the actual care of the baby himself. ”

“ The baby may be a potential Newton, Shakespeare, Beethoven or Buddha, but it is at its birth the most helpless thing alive, the potentialities of which avail it not one whit. It is in more need of care, immediate and continuous, than a baby microbe or a baby cat, whatever the unpublished glories of which its brain contains the promise ”

“ The little child from three to six is interested in sun, moon, and stars, in day and darkness, in rain, snow, wind, in flowers and trees, as well as in animals and birds. Natural, spontaneous questions regarding the biological origin and development of life are asked between three and eight, and this is the period especially recommended for teaching the child of the mother’s part in his prenatal care, and the value of the father’s share, and thereby fostering his wholesome attitude of gratitude, and his respect for all motherhood and fatherhood. ”

“ He looks up so earnestly, with such a solemn look in his eyes sometimes, that you would fancy he had all the cares of the world to think about, instead of only what his dinner will be, and when it will come, like other babies of two years old. Baby can talk nicely; he says his prayers night and morning, and before nurse feeds him with his beef-tea, he will fold his hands, and say his grace after her, as well as he can in his baby lisp. ”

“ We call a baby a little copy of the man, but really if he were magnified to man’s size and strength, we should regard him at first glance as an idiot and monster, with enormous head and abdomen, short legs, and no neck, not to speak of the flat-nosed, prognathous face; and on the other hand, a baby that was really a small copy of man’s body would seem positively uncanny. ”

“ There are nursemaids, and even mothers, who will wheel a baby along the street with the sun blazing full in his face, and who will keep a light burning all night for their own convenience in tending him; and in later years his schoolbooks will get the credit of having weakened his eyes. Nature protects the little one somewhat at the outset, for at first the eyes open by a narrow slit, which admits but scanty light: our baby was just beginning, at a month old, to open her eyes like other folk. ”

“ A baby clad in rags, and sheltered from the cold with them, a baby in its cradle—what do you think that cradle was? as truly as you live, nothing but a box such as a merchant packs his goods in! that baby, sleeping, heard it, and a light like sunshine spread over its pretty face. ”

“ It is a pleasant thing to have a baby in the house—one of your achy kind. Think of the pleasures of a father in his night costume, trembling in the midnight hour, with his warm feet upon a square yard of oilcloth, dropping paregoric in a teaspoon, by moonlight, the nurse thumping at the door, and the wife of your bosom crying “hurray,” and the baby yelling till the fresco drops from [319] the ceiling. It’s a nice time to think of dress coats, pants, ties, and white kids. ”